How do you define a valid lead

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What are leads?
The definition of a lead that must be shared between sales and marketing corresponds to the description of the ideal customer for the company, which in Inbound Marketing corresponds to the buyer persona.

A lead is a person who has filled out a form on the website, called the company in search of information, activated a chat conversation or interacted on social profiles.

What is a lead for the marketing team? The definition can be the same as above. For marketing professionals, it is a measurable and verifiable piece of data, because once the veracity of the email address or phone number is verified, it is a valid contact.

At this point, lead nurturing strategies should be implemented to prepare the lead for the transition to sales. Therefore, correlating it with CAC, any investment made to maintain a lead and convert it into a buyer is, in short, known as Customer Acquisition Cost.


Thanks to the information obtained through good marketing automation software , it is easy to understand the type of lead that has the highest conversion rate into customers. Within the conversion rate, we can also compare it with the CAC, and understand which is the best conversion within a lower acquisition cost.

Simply analyze demographic, geographic, and online industry email list behavior data and identify those that are common to your company's ideal customer. The channel from which the contact comes is also relevant; for example, you may notice that those on Instagram are more likely to complete the purchase.

The second step is to define a lead qualification system. For example, many CRM platforms (customer relationship management software) have lead scoring sections that allow you to assign a score to each action taken by the contact, such as downloading premium content offered via email marketing, for example.

When a direct contact or product demonstration is requested, the system can be configured to send an immediate notification to the sales team. This way, there is no wasted time and the right priorities are given to activities.

Within the lead qualification system, it is important to clarify the meaning given to the different terms: lead, contact and business opportunity. Understand:

Lead: is at the top of the funnel, needs to be nurtured to pass to the sales team;
Contact: already contacted by the sales team, may also be an already acquired customer (with a defined CAC);
Business opportunity: this is an advanced stage of the purchase process and the seller sees possibilities to complete the sale. The topics discussed at this stage are prices, sales conditions, comparison with competitors, and so on.